It was never going to be easy, but given the list of finalists for this award, we could hardly get it wrong. Each of the judges is happy to contend that any of the finalists for the inaugural Wine Magazine Volvo Winemaker of the Year would have made a worthy winner. It’s perhaps easier to judge wines than to judge winemakers, especially when the eight finalists for this award represent winemaking operations scaled between the minuscule and the gargantuan. How is it possible to compare the broad spread of activities carried out by senior major company winemakers like Southcorp’s Ian McKenzie, Richmond Grove’s John Vickery and Rosemount’s Philip Shaw with the more hands-on roles performed by Jeffrey Grosset and Vanya Cullen? Winemakers in anything from medium-sized operations are hardly likely to be operating the buttons of a press or crusher. Instead, their role is more concerned with fruit quality and time of harvest, classification of barrels of finished wine, blending and quality control. Their behind-the-scenes influences of style direction and education of younger winemakers are typically hard to gauge, unlike the more visible efforts of smaller makers. Small makers may exert their custody of a wine from the vineyard, through the cellar and all the way into the bottle. Although some of our larger wine companies do recognise the individual efforts of their leading makers and growers, it’s many times easier to attract the column-inches in the press if you crush less than fifty tonnes and if you do it by hand. While on one hand Ian McKenzie’s influence and winemaking contributions extend well beyond the relatively small number of wines on whose back label his name appears, other makers like John Wade or Stephen and Prue Henschke are rightly identified with each of the excellent wines bottled under their own name or label. So, having taken all this into account, the Wine Magazine panel has confidently selected one of Australia’s smaller winemakers, Jeffrey Grosset, as its inaugural Winemaker of the Year. Anyone who began taking wine seriously in recent years could be forgiven for thinking that Jeffrey Grosset has been a public figure in Australian wine forever. Yet until 1980 he was a winemaker at Lindemans’ Karadoc winery at Mildura and only made the first vintage of his own wine a year later. Jonathon Swift’s Gulliver would have enjoyed the transition from the sprawling Karadoc complex to his tiny new home in an old butter and ice factory in Auburn. Although in 1981 Grosset first began making the two rieslings on which his reputation has continued most to flourish, the most sought-after of his early wines was a Clare Valley cabernet sauvignon. From only his second vintage, Grosset’s 1982 blend of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, the early precursor to the modern ‘Gaia’ blend, became the first wine to catapault him to national attention. Today the Gaia is widely considered to be one of Australia’s more complete, elegant and sophisticated blends of Bordeaux varieties. Since its debut 1990 vintage it has demonstrated remarkable consistency, the hard-won result of Grosset’s painstaking approach to high-altitude viticulture for this hand crafted wine. Although nobody has done more in recent years to elevate the image of the Clare Valley, Grosset clearly understood its limitations with certain varieties. Although Tim Knappstein was the first of the high-profile Clare winemakers to set up camp in the Adelaide Hills, Jeffrey Grosset began sourcing fruit from the Piccadilly Valley in 1989, experimenting with semillon. That fruit is now blended with Clare Valley sauvignon blanc. He first took Piccadilly chardonnay in 1990, initially blending it with Clare Valley fruit, but making his first commercial release of 100% Piccadilly chardonnay in 1994, beginning a fine sequence of reserved, precise and minerally wines, enhanced with a restrained use of oak. Commencing with the 1993 vintage, Grosset’s first Piccadilly pinot noir initiated a series of tiny releases of low cropped and tightly crafted, concentrated wines of poise and distinction. But these days it is impossible to separate Jeffrey Grosset’s name from the rieslings he has made famous. The twin releases of Polish Hill and the Watervale Riesling are right at the sharp end of the resurgent Australian interest in this classic white variety. Highly praised last year by a group of German winemakers at an international Riesling Summit in Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel, the superbly fragrant, racy and steely 1997 Polish Hill almost defines the limits of what Australian riesling can be expected to achieve. We hope Jeff Grosset is surprised and delighted with this award. We don’t think any Australian winemaker has made more of an impression amongst the Australian wine industry or public over the most recent twelve months. In congratulating him and the other finalists we wish upon each of them a long and rewarding association with wine. 1998 has indeed been a hot year for Grosset. Arise, Sir Jeffrey.
